President Biden Designates Frances Perkins Homestead as New National Monument
PHOTO: Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney beside President Biden as he designates the Frances
Perkins Homestead as a National Monument.
Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney joined President Joe Biden Monday as he designated Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark in Newcastle, Maine as the newest national monument. Utilizing his executive authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, President Biden’s action makes the Frances Perkins National Monument our 433rd national park site.
Frances Perkins was a trailblazing woman and pioneering advocate for economic security and labor rights. Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet as Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, becoming one of President Roosevelt’s closest and most highly regarded advisors. She fought for working people and served as a driving force behind the New Deal, helping to lift Americans out of the Great Depression.
The new Frances Perkins National Monument will be managed by the National Park Service. The designation comes after a successful grassroots campaign led by the nonprofit Frances Perkins Center and the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), urging the president to honor Frances Perkins’ legacy with a national monument.
Frances Perkins was born into a highly unequal society where large numbers of American workers worked from sunrise to sunset earning barely enough to survive. It was a time when children were forced to forego their educations to work in factories and untold thousands of people were killed and maimed in preventable workplace accidents. There were no pensions, no overtime pay, and no unemployment or workers compensation for most working people.
Speaking at the event, President Phinney noted the timeliness of the President’s announcement as anti-labor politicians in Washington seek to undo Perkins’ legacy by supporting cuts to Social Security and undermining workers’ rights.
“When workers got organized and fought back, Frances Perkins joined them in the struggle for human dignity and workers’ rights,” said Phinney. "At a time when everything Frances Perkins fought for — from Social Security and child labor protections to fair wages and safe working conditions — is under serious threat, designating her homestead as a National Monument is a critical step to honoring and preserving her legacy for generations of working people to come.”
In March, as part of Women’s History Month, President Biden issued an executive orderdirecting the US Department of Interior to identify sites that recognize the contributions of women in US history and to strengthen the National Park Service’s recognition of women’s history.
The Frances Perkins Center owned and managed the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark when it purchased the 57-acre riverfront property in 2020 from Perkins’ only living descendent, Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall. Inspired by the executive order, the Frances Perkins Center and NPCA launched the public campaign calling for a national park site to honor Perkins’ legacy.
More than 5,000 people signed a petition asking President Biden to make the designation, and the Park for Perkins’ campaign was supported by a broad cross-section of Maine leaders, including Gov. Janet Mills, US Sen. Angus King, US Sen. Susan Collins, US Rep. Chellie Pingree, former US Sen. Olympia Snowe, Maine Senate President Mattie Daughtry, former Maine Speaker of the House Rachel Talbot Ross and many others.
The ancestral home of her family served as a place of respite and inspiration for Frances Perkins. Throughout her career in Chicago, New York City, Albany, and ultimately Washington, DC, she always returned to Newcastle. The new national monument consists of 57 acres along the Damariscotta River. The boundary of the national monument includes the entire property but the initial donation to the American people includes the preserved and restored 1837 Brick House, barn, and adjacent property. The Frances Perkins Center will maintain ownership of land sufficient for the future, private construction of an educational center.